


Drastic Measures

by embulalia



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Intense mothering, Medical Procedures, Nightmares, The nightmare contains some slightly graphic imagery but it's short and not real, Why oh why was there no platonic tag for Jheselbraum and Ford, it breaks my heart that I must be a trail blazer on this front
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8236915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embulalia/pseuds/embulalia
Summary: Ford wakes up in the dark. He's used to that. 
Ford is taken care of by a kind hand. He's not used to that.
A very self indulgent Space Mom story that goes through Ford's time in Dimension 52. Also known as: a birthday gift that got quite large.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Witete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witete/gifts).



He woke up in pain. That was nothing out of the ordinary, as far as blacking out and coming to went. He probably would have been more surprised to not wake up in pain. But, if there was one thing he had learned over the past decade or two, it’s that expecting pain does little to improve the experience. 

He opened his eyes, but it was too dark to see. Wherever he was, it was black. Nighttime, if he had been lucky. An unnavigable, inky void if he had not. 

He did a quick inventory of himself. Twitch each finger, curl the toes, subtly move each limb. Never too fast, never too abrupt; if he was surrounded, attracting attention before his bearings had been gained would be disastrous. All twenty four phalanges were accounted for, and his limbs appeared in working order. He didn’t seem to be bound or otherwise restrained. The situation was improving by the moment. 

He heard movement nearby, somewhere behind him. It took a great deal of willpower to not instantly freeze; instead, he focused on keeping his breathing slow. Hopefully, whatever creature was with him had not noticed his newfound consciousness. 

The movements paused briefly before continuing. He swore to himself internally, certain he had somehow alerted the creature. He could hear it growing closer, and his heartbeat began to speed up as defensive adrenaline pumped into his bloodstream. He was preparing to defend himself, preparing for an attack that could happen any moment now, any moment now. The thing was so close, he could feel its body heat against his side, the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, it was touching him— 

The movement was sudden and fluid. Ford clawed at his hip in a mad grab for his gun while whipping around, yanking himself up from the supine position he had been in. He felt his own nails dig into his flesh in that grab, but the momentum and panic kept him from realizing what that meant. The lightning fast moment had come and gone, and he was brandishing an empty hand into the darkness, his hip smarting and his chest heaving with fast breaths.

Nothing happened. The only sound was his hyperventilation as the gravity of his error dawned on him, and he began to take a proper notice of his position. He was not wearing his gun belt. Whatever had captured him had also disarmed him. But it wasn’t only his gun belt that had been stripped from him; nay, his wild grasping had driven fingernails into bare flesh. He was suddenly aware of a chilly draft against his skin. He could feel goosebumps quickly rise over his arms and legs. He was naked, unarmed, and blinded, all while in the presence of an unknown creature in an unknown dimension.

“Back off!” Ford barked, trying to keep the nervous wobble out of his speech. It came through despite his efforts. Another cold breeze ruffled his hair, and he shivered.

“You’re cold,” remarked a quiet, gentle voice that hummed softly with warmth. The sound made Ford jump and draw back, raising both his fists in preparation for a fight. “You knocked your blankets off.”

Ford paused. “B… Blankets?” he muttered. It was then that he realized he wasn’t strewn across a hard floor. The surface beneath him was soft, comfortable. Cozy, even. 

“Yes,” the voice said. He heard movement, and then a soft, downy comforter was spread across his legs. He drew away from the touch again, but with much less vehemence. He wanted desperately to wrap himself fully, but he didn’t dare lower his fists quite yet.

“Where am I?!” Ford demanded, attempting to regain his aggression. “Why can’t I see?!”

There was a quiet pause, and then the warm, reverberant voice chuckled lightly. “Oh, of course… Please excuse my negligence.” 

He heard movement again. Then there were hands on his head. He instinctively lashed out, driving a fist into the space in front of his face. It hit a rock solid form, sending a tremor of pain up his arm. A sickening crunching sound accompanied it. He bit down on a yelp, instead letting out a restrained hiss. 

The hands drew back, and the figure sighed softly. “Stanford, please, refrain from attacking me. You will only injure yourself, as you have just done.”

That was not what Ford expected to hear.

“W… Wh… How did you…?” Ford stammered tensely, cradling his hand against his chest. He had definitely broken something. 

“Please, allow me to restore your vision. We may speak afterwards,” the voice soothed. Ford gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, but, aside from an instinctive flinch, he held still when the hands returned to his face. Some gentle pressure was applied to his eyelids, and he felt an itchy wetness seep under his lashes and into his closed eyes. They stung for a moment, and then the hands were removed. “Open them slowly. The light is quite low, but it might still cause you irritation after such a lengthy period in darkness.”

Ford did as was suggested, gradually allowing them to flutter open. He squinted through his lashes, more tears flooding his blurry vision. He wiped them roughly and shaded his face with his uninjured hand. 

It was difficult to interpret much without his glasses, which must have been removed with the rest of his clothes. But he could tell that the voice had not been deceiving him: the light in the room was rather low. It cast a yellowish hue over the blurred shapes and colours around him, a hue that flickered slightly. A glance down guaranteed that he was certainly on a bed of some sort. The mattress was white, the blanket over his legs powder blue. 

A glance up told him that his captor was approximately seven feet tall.

He had seen many a bizarre creature during his forced interdimensional travels and was certainly no stranger to figures with any peculiar number of eyes. The thing was, they were usually set within decidedly non-humanoid skulls. This time, however, what appeared to be seven distinct eyeballs were taking up three quarters of the otherwise humanoid face. He could make out no nose with his hazy vision. The creature’s skin was the same powder blue as the comforter. 

The creature chuckled. “Oh, how silly of me. I have not yet fully restored your vision, have I?” it said. It turned and walked away from the bed, only to return a moment later with something small and black cradled in its large hands. “I believe you need these.”

“M-My glasses,” Ford said, reaching for them instantly. The tall creature gently deposited them into his waiting hand. He stuffed them onto his face as quickly as his fumbling fingers would allow, the world sharpening back into focus.

Seven eyes was exactly right. 

The creature smiled warmly at him. “Is that better, Stanford?” it asked. 

Ford nodded silently, examining his captor. Although, now that he could see the gentle grace of its stance and the kind, eye crinkling smile on its face, the word “captor” felt quite inaccurate. Between the warm, soothing voice, and the gentle smile, she gave off a rather motherly aura. It made Ford exceedingly wary. Far too many questions were bouncing around his mind. 

The first one to come out of his mouth was, “Why do you match the bed sheets?”

The creature chuckled again and slowly sat on the end of his bed, gathering the skirt of her robe elegantly. She smoothed the rumpled blankets, tossed around by Ford’s flailing in the first moments of his awareness. “I suppose I’m fond of this shade of blue,” she said, resting her long hands in her lap and fixing all seven eyes on him. He squirmed under the intense scrutiny. “But that is not what you meant to ask me,” she prompted gently, “You are simply flustered.”

Ford scooted a little further away from her, pressing his bare back to the cold, smooth wall behind him. He grabbed the blanket and yanked it up to keep himself as covered as possible. “Yes,” he muttered, looking down at the hand he had slammed into the creature’s body. Swollen, bruised. He grimaced. That particular type of fracture was quite familiar to him, and he knew exactly how annoying and uncomfortable it would be during the healing process. He looked back up at the creature. “Who are you?”

“Jheselbraum, the Unswerving.” She lightly dusted off her dark grey robe. “ And you are in Dimension 52.”

“Jheselbraum…” Ford repeated under his breath. “Dimension 52…”

“Yes, that is correct.”

Before Ford could ask anything further, his stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him of the aching hunger pangs he had been suffering through before he landed in that 2-D dimension. Jheselbraum looked rather surprised, then drew herself back up to her full height. 

“Oh, do excuse me. I seem to have forgotten your hunger. Allow me just a moment to fetch you some nourishment,” Jheselbraum said with a kind smile. She left the room.

Ford immediately hopped out of the bed, the smooth floor frigid under his bare, calloused feet. He padded across the small room, searching for his clothing and weaponry. Although his knowledge of Jheselbraum the Unswerving was extremely limited, he could only imagine nefarious motivations for the removal of all his clothing and weaponry and was feeling extremely vulnerable without it all. At the very least, the thing could’ve left him his underpants. 

The room was entirely made of cold, smooth stone, and drafts seemed to blow through it every few minutes. Ford was quickly reduced to shivering, and he found himself gravitating towards the polished, mint green hearth that was the source of the soft, yellowed light. The fire was small, and didn’t appear to be feeding off of anything. It was equally comforting and unsettling: the warmth it offered was more than welcome, as was the surprisingly soothing familiarity of an orange fire rather than green or purple, but that only pushed the fact that it needed no kindling further into the uncanny valley. 

Ford had never seen stone quite like the stone that surrounded him in this tiny, chilly room. It was marbled with a variety of pastel colours—soft pinks, subtle lavenders, the minty green used in the hearth, and the baby blue that seemed to be a clear preference of Jheselbraum’s. Ford wondered if the creature’s fascination with her own colour was a sign of some sort of narcissistic fixation. The stone was buffed to an impressive sheen, glinting with the yellow flickers of light the familiar but odd fire cast over the room. Despite Ford’s bare feet, no footprints or smudges marred the shine. 

As for furniture, it didn’t seem to extend beyond the single, backless bed and the hearth. The room was quite small; it would only fit a chair or two in addition anyway. Even so, Ford couldn’t help but feel reminded of a barren prison cell. 

Fitting, he supposed; he did appear to be in captivity. 

It didn’t take long for Ford to decide that his clothing and possessions were not in the room with him. Frustrating, but not surprising. He grit his teeth and returned to the bed, sinking gingerly down into the soft mattress. A number of small aches were peppered over his body. 

That didn’t seem right.

Over the past few years, he had been going through something of a desperate period. Bill’s outreach program had significantly ramped up its efficacy, and suddenly, wanted posters bearing Ford’s face and an outlandishly high bounty were popping up all over the multiverse. It seemed that every time Ford was spat into a new dimension, he would be met by hundreds of bounty hunters seeking his head on a spit, eager to capture him in whatever state they could and dump him at Bill’s feet. That had led to a long, long period of running, of combat, of urgently attempting to keep himself a step ahead of not only Bill’s personal lackeys, but any crazed alien with a lacking code of ethics and a thirst for riches. He hadn’t had much time for rest, to properly attend to any wounds he had sustained, to eat or sleep well. Dreadful pains had become such a glaringly constant presence in his life that he had become completely accustomed to them. 

And now he was feeling only limited aching in a few joints, and the sharper pain of his injured hand.

Hunger was clawing at his belly, but it was the type of hunger one might expect from going seven hours without food, rather than four days. He was also salivating normally, which suggested he was fully and properly hydrated. He looked down at his own naked body and found it covered in bandages large and small, all pristinely white and fresh. 

His list of questions for Jheselbraum seemed only to be growing.

The door opened silently, giving Ford no warning about his captor’s return. He wasn’t aware of her presence until she announced, “I have brought you a bowl of astral soup. It has been agreeable on your stomach thus far, and you seemed to enjoy the flavour.”

Ford jumped, his hand instinctively going to his hip. He stopped himself before he could once again gouge into his own skin, however: there was no gun to grab. “Astral soup,” he repeated, his voice quiet and gruff.

“Yes. I have been feeding it to you during your period of unawareness. As I said, it seemed to agree with you,” Jheselbraum said, kneeling down at Ford’s bedside. The bowl was filled with an ill-defined fluid that seemed to vibrate, the surface beset by a constant stream of ripples. The colour was metallic and black, like liquid jet. It didn’t look particularly edible, but Ford had choked down stranger things. When he reached to take the bowl, Jheselbraum silently moved it away from his reach. He bristled.

“I will feed myself,” he said angrily, his eyes glinting.

Jheselbraum was entirely unaffected by his display. “Your hand is injured, Stanford,” she said, her voice still soothing but also firm. “You cannot hold both a bowl and a spoon. I will feed you.”

“A boxer’s fracture doesn’t inhibit my ability to hold a spoon!” he snapped. 

“I understand that this is frustrating for you. But please, do remember: I have been feeding you for two weeks now. There is no cause for embarrassment,” Jheselbraum said with the tone of a parent gently reprimanding a snotty child. 

“Two weeks?!” Ford repeated.

“Indeed.” Jheselbraum dipped the spoon into the bowl and brought it back up full. “I would like to tend to your hand, but I believe your nourishment is of graver importance. Allow me to feed you, please.”

Ford’s wide eyes flicked from the spoon to Jheselbraum’s patient smile, and he squirmed further away from her. He was closing in on the edge of the bed. “No. No, you’re attempting to drug me. You do not get to treat me like a child. What do you want with me, how did I get here?!”

Jheselbraum was still for a moment. Then, she sighed and lowered the spoon back into the bowl. “You are becoming distressed.”

“Distressed?!” Ford laughed, an edge of panic creeping into his tone. He grabbed uselessly for his absent gun once again. “Where the hell am I, what the hell are you?!”

“I have already told you those things, Stanford. I am Jheselbraum, and you are in Dimension—” 

“Shut up! That’s not what I mean and you KNOW it! How do you know my name?!” Ford cried. Then, he went rigid. A flood of cold fear rushed down his spine. “Y-You read the posters. You’re… You’re going to turn me over to HIM!” he screamed, scrambling away from her. 

Jheselbraum moved so quickly that Ford couldn’t see it happen. In one instant, Ford was about to fall from the bed in his panic. In the next, he was securely being pulled back into place by a large, warm, solid arm. The sheer surprise overrode his hysterics. 

“Stanford. I know you are very intelligent. Please think logically,” Jheselbraum said softly. Her voice was so gentle, brimming with concern. “If I were interested in receiving your bounty, why would you still be in my care?”

Ford’s chest was heaving and his eyes were wide. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears. Her words bounced around his skull, and he could not deny the truth in them. Bounty hunters would gladly deliver him to Bill in pieces; wasting the time and resources needed to nurse him would never be done.

“You are very on edge. It has been a strenuous decade for you,” Jheselbraum said, gently pushing Ford back against the pillows. She pulled the powder blue blanket up to his chest and smoothed it out. “You are in need of rest and comfort.”

Ford grasped the hem of the blanket in his uninjured hand, twisting it between his fingers. Nothing about this was right. He was supposed to be fleeing or fighting, not allowing a seven foot tall, seven eyed thing to baby him. But the bed was quite comfortable… and she seemed so very genuine in her offers of care and affection… and it had been so long since he got to lay somewhere soft…

Jheselbraum picked the bowl of soup back up. “Open your mouth, please. I will take care of your hand after you have had something to eat.”

Ford’s heart was still blasting in his ears, and his eyes were still wide. But he was hungry, and he could perceive no immediate threat. He tightened his grip on the blanket, swallowed down whatever panic he could, and parted his lips.

 

 

Jheselbraum resided in a polished stone shrine high in the clouds. She had told him when he asked why he was not permitted to leave the room. "The air is too thin for your constitution," she had explained kindly, "I am keeping this room at an appropriate level of oxygen for your survival. Outside of this room, you might struggle with respiration." Ford resented the minuscule size of the room, but he supposed the ability to breathe was a worthwhile benefit. 

If she was to be trusted, at least. Ford was still grappling with that matter. He was loath to trust a being effectively keeping him hostage, but she seemed wholly benevolent. She was keeping him fed, and she had returned his clothing as soon as his hand was bandaged. Her attention to medical care was stellar; Ford hadn't been able to keep his injuries so sanitized in at least a decade.

He had recently lost track of exactly how many years it had been. 

He disliked that. It signified a certain finality. He couldn't put his finger on exactly why, but losing track seemed to mean resignation. 

That didn't matter though. There were always much more pressing concerns on hand than such petty worries as that. Survival, for one. Primarily, his quest. 

The stay with Jheselbraum was giving him plenty of chances to consider his plans regarding Bill. He even had the luxury of indulging himself in some unproductive rage and self flagellation now and then, although he still kept his focus on the formation of a weapon. A scheme. 

Jheselbraum had not given back his weaponry, likely for her own protection. She had also not given back his flask. Everything else that had been on his person was returned to him. Thankfully, this included his papers and pens. Most of his notes were accounted for, sans a few random pages. It seemed reasonable to assume that the sheets had been dropped in whatever altercation left him unconscious. Ford couldn't remember exactly which were gone, but they all seemed too inconsequential to suspect some foul play on the part of his captor. 

Host?

He still had yet to decide. 

Ford sat in front of the fireplace, his amazingly, luxuriously clean coat helping to protect his form from the frequent drafts. He hadn't worn clean clothing in a very long while. Perhaps he might even have the opportunity to indulge himself with a hot bath. His heart fluttered with yearning at the thought. 

He twirled his pen through his fingers deftly, the battered metal body tapping against his knuckles as it flipped. He had scrounged up his sheets of sketches and writings, all tattered and burned. Squeezed into every inch of paper possible were drawings of guns, which were accompanied by scrawled equations and the occasional tiny doodle. The weapon was a long way from completion—little more than a pipe dream at best. But something told him that, in time, Experiment 618 would be the thing that finished it all. He could feel it in his gut: with this weapon in his hand, he would finally defeat Bill. 

He knew constructing such a weapon was currently beyond his capabilities. The faint whispers that had bounced around his skull for years, now and then crescendoing into agonizing screams, reminded him of that. A being of pure energy cannot be killed; energy cannot be destroyed. Ford dragged a hand through his hair, hoping the gentle pressure of fingers against his skull might calm the headache. 

Headaches were frequent, reminding him of Bill's lingering presence in his mind. Ford was too far away from Bill to allow for any puppetry, but the demon's influence still remained. It was like some piece of Bill had become embedded in his brain.

Whatever piece that might be was very talkative indeed. 

The neverending mumbles and taunts and laughs were dreadful. But after a year spent as a living puppet, he could deal with it. It was the nightmares that really interfered with things.

As a vagrant and grifter, sleeping was something of an unaffordable luxury anyway. He couldn’t allow his guard to be down like that for more than an hour or so at a time in most dimensions, which should have made dreaming near impossible. With Bill’s interference, though, they would happen most times he dozed off. Terrible things, mortifying things, sickening things happened in those dreams. It made sleeping incredibly unappealing, as the gamble that it would be uneventful hardly seemed worthwhile.

He hadn’t slept very much since waking up in Jheselbraum’s shrine. A day or two ago (it was difficult to keep track from his single room), he had fallen asleep for an hour and snapped awake at the very beginning of a dream. That was it. Some part of him wished he were able to take advantage of his safe location and finally rest, but it was simply no use. Bill would not allow it, not while the remnants of his stupid deal still clung to his back. 

He had taken strides to conceal his self-induced insomnia from Jheselbraum. He still knew too little about her and her allegiances to trust her with that potentially damning information. While he was becoming more and more convinced that she would not be handing him over to Bill, it felt incredibly unwise to directly admit that he had the demon’s influence lingering in his brain like smog. She already knew he was being pursued. Being booted off the mountain her shrine rested atop was not a situation he needed to deal with.

His head was still pounding insistently. He sighed with annoyance and applied sturdy pressure to his right temple. Fretting over it was getting him nowhere; there were more important matters to concern himself with.

He took his pen to one of the very few blank spaces left and sketched yet another version of Experiment 618. He had been favouring black metal for the exterior lately; something sleek and intimidating. Something cool. He smiled to himself and added six fingered hands gripping it to his illustration. 

His most consistent stumbling block with the design was figuring out what the projectile should be. Pure energy, as he knew very well, could not be destroyed, so he had been toying with the thought of something that might scramble it. Energy could, after all, be repurposed. He was very fond of the idea that he might be able to harvest the energy comprising his enemy and put it to practical use. Perhaps in a microwave. Or a toilet-cleaning device. 

Or a portal to another dimension.

Ford sighed softly and tapped his pen against the pages before him. He wouldn’t trust the energy in that demon to power anything. He would much prefer to find a way to destroy him, but the laws of physics were not on his side. Although, when were they ever? He chuckled to himself at that thought. 

“What is amusing you, Stanford?” asked the familiar warm tone. Ford jumped, his heart rate immediately spiking. He gripped the pen like a weapon instinctively. When he twisted to look at her over his shoulder, she was smiling at him. A neatly folded pile of pale blue fabric rested in her arms. 

“Nothing,” he replied, “What is that?”

Jheselbraum blinked all seven of her eyes. “It’s a cloak. I was getting the impression that you were becoming… ah… stir crazy due to the size of your room. I wanted to bring you out to see the view from the edge of the shrine.”

Ford instantly jumped to his feet, scattering his papers in his urgency. “Yes, please, right now,” he gasped, any pretence of stoicism thrown directly out the window. Jheselbraum chuckled.

“It’s lovely to see you so enthusiastic, Stanford,” she said, handing him the cloak. He yanked it on, his body swallowed by the massive garment. She laughed a bit harder. “Oh. It appears to be… rather big on you.”

Ford blushed a little. At one time in his life, he may have taken it as a slight towards his height. Nowadays, he had come to learn that most interdimensional creatures had no concept for how tall the average human was supposed to be anyway. He rolled up the sleeves until his hands were free, resulting in thick donuts of fabric circling his wrists. It looked silly, but it would be more functional. As for the hem, he would just have to avoid tripping and falling on it. “You are a fair bit larger than I am, aren’t you?” Ford remarked.

“Why yes, I believe you are correct,” she agreed, gently brushing the wrinkles from the cloak. Then, she opened the silent door for him. 

He had never really been captive in Jheselbraum’s shrine; he was quite sure that she would have allowed him to leave had he asked. But the room had become comfortable. It had become safe. Ford hadn’t felt safe in a very long time. Despite how restless he had grown, despite his excitement from only a moment ago, anxiety clawed at his stomach as he looked into the hallway. He made no move to approach the door. Jheselbraum watched him.

“You have become nervous,” she said, all seven eyes fixed on him. He shivered.

“I haven’t…” he muttered softly, trailing off before he could complete his thought. His body was making it more and more clear by the moment that it was not on board with this plan. His muscles were tense, and, despite the cloak, he was beginning to get chills.

After another moment passed, Jheselbraum’s faint confusion melted into kind reassurance. “I assure you, Stanford,” she said, her voice almost vibrating with warmth, “that the rest of my home is just as safe as this room. You need not be afraid while you are here.”

Ford almost let slip that it wasn’t true, that he wasn’t truly safe anywhere. That even being in the room wasn’t really safe, but it was easier to be in control when his world was that small. He bit his lip to keep it in and nodded. If Jheselbraum noticed, she didn’t let on. 

Ford took in a long, slow breath, then walked to the door. He paused just before it, hesitating before finally forcing himself out into the hallway.

The first thing he noticed was how… not empty it was. His room had been near featureless, containing only the furniture, the hearth, and his own personal affects. The hallway, meanwhile, was adorned with small tapestries, paintings, and strange plants in a wide variety of colours. It was much homier, much less cell-like. He took in the view with a furrowed brow, then looked up at Jheselbraum.

“I keep my guest rooms empty for the comfort of the occupant,” she explained, seeming to understand his confusion without any explanation. “Some people find my taste in decoration too busy.”

“You should have seen my house,” Ford snorted. Her strange ability to guess his thoughts wasn’t nearly as startling and off-putting as it once was. “It was far more cluttered than this, believe me.”

“Oh yes?” Jheselbraum led the way down the hall, making sure to walk slowly so Ford could keep up. He wondered how long her legs might be under the cloak. Unfortunately, there was no way to ask her without coming across as far more forward than he ever wanted to be. 

Ford nodded. “Papers, books, and charts on every surface. I kept a model skeleton just inside the door!” He snorted. “It certainly got a scare out of Fiddleford when I put it up. And also every day for a week or two after that.”

“Fiddleford. A friend of yours?”

“Friend and partner. He helped me with my research in Gravity Falls,” Ford explained, a feeling of nostalgia creeping into his heart. He sighed softly. 

“You miss him,” Jheselbraum said. Not a question, just an observation. 

Ford nodded. “Yes, of course I do. He was my friend and I haven’t seen him in… in a while.”

“You don’t remember how long?” 

“I… No. No, I don’t,” he admitted. Jheselbraum didn’t respond. 

They reached a large door, large even for Jheselbraum. She looked down at him. “We won’t be able to stay outside for a long time. Please let me know if you begin to feel uncomfortably lightheaded.”

“Understood,” he affirmed. She eased open the door.

A burst of cold air hit Ford straight on, and he immediately felt short of breath. He had been expecting it though, and was able to set aside the discomfort. Outside the large door was a sort of patio space, shaded by an overhang of the shrine and lit by a few strings of twinkling white lights. Blue rugs lined the patio, and a few cushioned chairs were dotted about. It was quite a comfortable spot, although the cold and the thin air detracted from that significantly. 

Jheselbraum walked to the very edge of the patio and sat down gracefully. She swung her legs (or leg-like appendages. Ford had no real way of knowing what was actually under her robe) over the edge, letting them dangle in the open air. Then, she looked back at him over her shoulder, inviting him to join her with her gaze alone. 

He did so hesitantly, not eager to slip from the overly long robe bunching around his feet. A strong sensation of vertigo washed over him when he looked out over the steep drop down the mountain. He gripped the edge of the patio. 

“Focus on your breathing,” Jheselbraum instructed gently, “You will grow more accustomed to the air before too long.” Ford nodded. 

Breezes washed over them both every few minutes or so, ruffling Ford’s hair and raising goosebumps over his skin. He was quite grateful for the cloak, pulling it tightly around himself with each puff of wind. It was peaceful, sitting quietly, the only sounds from those periodic gusts. The view from the mountaintop was quite relaxing as well; they were high enough up that a layer of foggy cloud swirled beneath their feet, the craggy tops of other mountains poking through. The range extended far beyond Ford’s view. Despite the chill and the thin air, he was comfortable. Content.

“It is rather nice out here, isn’t it Stanford?” Jheselbraum said after a while, keeping her voice quiet so as to not be too startling. Ford nodded, keeping his eyes on the view. “You are not as nervous now,” she added.

“No, I suppose not,” he agreed, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“That is good. I don’t want you to be nervous here.” 

A stronger gust of wind passed through, whipping the fabric of their loose clothing. Ford drew his shoulders up to his ears, wishing he had a hat or scarf as well as the cloak. A shiver ran down his spine, this one separate from the cold. 

“It’s quite… comfortable in the room,” Ford said.

“Yes, I thought you would find it nice. When people have been on the run for a long time, living in a small space can be a relief. There is nothing to hide from in a single room.” 

Jheselbraum looked down at Ford, her seven eyes examining him intently. Ford could feel his ears burning red under the examination. He beat down an urge to flee from the stare. He didn’t take well to being watched. 

“You are still nervous though,” she remarked.

“I’m fine.”

“Something is troubling you.” She paused. “Many things are troubling you, I believe.”

Ford grit his teeth and pulled the cloak tighter around himself. Another shiver unrelated to the cold ran down his spine. 

“You miss many people from your dimension,” she said slowly. “You are afraid you will never see them again.”

“I already know I’ll never see them again,” Ford grumbled bitterly. 

“You tell yourself you know, but you still hope,” Jheselbraum replied evenly. 

Ford pulled his shoulders up a bit more, like a turtle trying to hide in its shell.

“There is nothing wrong with having hope,” she told him after a pause. 

“It’s ridiculous when I know it’s futile,” Ford bit back, frustration bubbling up in his voice. “It just means that I have to mourn what I’ve lost over and over again. There is plenty wrong with that.”

Jheselbraum blinked slowly. “You mustn’t be so certain about what your future holds, Stanford. Things are often not as clear as they might seem.”

Ford swallowed hard around the lump that had formed in his throat. “You said you’re an oracle,” he said softly, barely audible over the wind. “Do you know what my future holds…?”

Jheselbraum sighed, the sound carrying with it sympathy and sorrow. “Clairvoyance is not as simple as that, Stanford. There are many versions of you. Infinite variations of the same story. And they all come to different conclusions.” She ghosted a hand over his shoulder, meaning to be comforting. He flinched, and she pulled it away. “I see many different conclusions for you, but I cannot say which one is yours.”

Ford huffed, veiling his disappointment with irritation. “Some oracle you are…”

“I know that you are upset, so I will forgive your rudeness.”

Silence again.

“I want to go back inside,” Ford said. Dark blotches were beginning to dance at the edges of his vision, and his chest was aching from how short his breaths had become.

“Of course, Stanford,” Jheselbraum said, rising to her feet. She offered him a hand. He didn’t take it. “If you want to come out here again, you need only ask.”

Ford nodded, hugging his arms around his chest with a shiver. He felt a lot better once he was back in the room, where he didn’t have to resist the urge to flee. 

 

 

Intense purples, oranges, and reds swirled around him, flashing brightly enough to make his eyes water and sting. He couldn’t feel his hands or arms, and his breath was impeded by the sensation of a tight bind around his chest. He thrashed blindly, tears obscuring his vision. 

He was almost relieved when the voice cut through the confusion because it was at least something he could make sense of. Almost relieved.

"Oh, Fordsy! So nice of you to join the PARTY!” The cackling laughter felt like a slap to the face, and Ford wanted to scream in anger. He couldn’t draw in enough to air to make a sound more forceful than a smothered whine. 

“You know, it can be so hard to find you these days!” Bill crooned, appearing in front of Ford’s blurry vision with a poof. “With you appearing and disappearing all over the multiverse, I’m having trouble keeping track of you!”

Ford kicked his legs in the direction of the triangle, but the rapidly distorting colours of the environment make it hard to see him through the disorientation. He doubted he would be able to land a blow even if he could see clearly. He wanted to cover his eyes, but he couldn’t seem to find his arms.

“But I finally got you again! Now we can finally have a proper chat with each other again! Not that I didn’t love talking at you all day before, but it’s so much more satisfying when I can watch your stupid face!”

Tears rolled down Ford’s cheeks. His eyes hurt so bad, and his head was spinning, and he wanted to wake up he wanted to wake up why couldn’t he just wake UP.

“Aw, crying already?” It was hard to say if Bill sounded disappointed or delighted. It could have easily be either. “Some interdimensional rogue you are! Can’t even take a few seconds in the Nightmare Realm! You’re going soft, Sixer. As soon as you leave whatever cushy dimension you’re in now, you’ll get swallowed whole.” Bill cackled again. “And if you’re lucky, maybe whatever it is that does it will spit you out at my feet!”

Ford squeezed his eyes tightly shut, willing himself to snap awake. He wanted it so badly, he couldn’t remember the last time he wanted something more, he didn’t want to be in this hellish dream with Bill’s laughter bearing down on him from all sides.

There was no warning at all when he suddenly felt the horrible pain slash across his sides. It was like sharp claws were being raked down his flesh. He tried to scream again, desperately struggling to escape the awful pain. But it was coming from both sides, he had nowhere to go, and he still couldn’t get enough air to make much noise. The laughter got louder.

“What’s the matter, Fordsy?! I’ve seen you deal with worse stuff than this! You go to a loser dimension for a few weeks and suddenly you can’t take a little pain! Pathetic, don’t you think?”

The pain paused during Bill’s taunts, allowing Ford a moment to gasp desperately for air. His sides burned, and he could feel tears streaming down his cheeks. 

He wanted to wake up. He could feel Bill’s awful stare bearing down on him, and he was in so much pain, and he couldn’t move or see or even scream. He hadn’t felt so helpless in a very, very long time. 

Bill laughed again. “You know, I gotta hand it to you, Sixer, you’re always a lot of fun to play with! I can appreciate a guy who’s always entertaining!” Ford felt a sharp jab from Bill’s cane being driven into his gut. He coughed hard. Bill made a sound of glee. “You made it so hard for me to find you, and it’s been so long… Really makes me want to make the most of this time! Gotta get it all out of my system now!” Ford shuddered bodily, making another pathetic attempt at kicking at Bill. Bill laughed yet again, the sound growing louder and louder and louder and smothering Ford from every side and stealing what remained of his breath as his body shook— 

And then it all went silent.

He awoke sitting upright on something very warm and very hard. He started, scrambled desperately away, and fell to the floor, trembling horribly. A stab of pain ran up his arm from landing on the hand he had injured when he first woke. It wrenched a yelp from his chest and another bout of panic as he yanked his hand away from the ground, throwing himself off balance in the process.

“Stanford!” Jheselbraum barked from behind him. He jumped, whipping around to face her. “Stanford,” she said again, much more gently this time. “Stanford, it is alright. You were dreaming. You are awake now, and you are alright.”

Ford blinked heavily, his breath coming so hard and fast that it made his chest ache. He was in the room again, and it was warm. He wasn’t bleeding; the wounds had not carried over beyond lingering phantom aches, to his great relief. He could certainly feel his hands now; the insistent pain from the fractured one makes sure he won’t forget that. He blinked a few more times, trying to clear the tears stinging his eyes. 

“Stanford, look at me,” Jheselbraum said warmly but firmly. He lifted his head, fixing his watery gaze on her. “You were only dreaming. You are awake now. You are safe. Do you understand?”

Ford nodded slowly, swiping roughly at his eyes with his uninjured hand. The other one remains carefully tucked in his lap. “Y-Yes… Yes, of course I understand.” He was starting to come around now, at least enough to want to protect his dignity. Jheselbraum sighed.

“There is no shame in feeling fear,” she said gently. “There is no shame in needing to take a moment to breathe.”

Of course, the problem with taking a moment to breathe had less to do with shame than it did with survival. Taking a moment to breathe could get one killed in a more dangerous dimension. Instincts built over years of constantly facing death could not be dismissed by a mere reassurance.

Not to mention the fact that taking a moment to breathe in front of someone was quite embarrassing. 

Jheselbraum lightly touched Ford’s cheek with long, broad fingers. He drew away from them, so she brought her hand back to her lap. “You do not have to worry about survival while you are with me, Stanford. I promise that you are safe here.”

Ford brought his knees up to his chest, feeling the need to make himself as small as he could. He did not want to feel the gaze of seven eyes digging into him. But he didn’t want Jheselbraum to leave, either. Her presence was comforting.

A pained look flashed across Jheselbraum’s face. “Oh, Stanford… It is difficult to see you in such a state…” she sighed quietly. 

“You can leave if you want,” he muttered. 

“That is not a solution to this problem.” Jheselbraum rose from the bed, then sat on the floor in front of Ford. She still towered over him, so he couldn’t begin to imagine what the point of that was. “Stanford, how much have you been sleeping?”

Ford didn’t quite think that Jheselbraum could read his thoughts, but she seemed impeccably good at guessing what they might be. Whenever he lied to her, he could feel the disappointment hiding in her face, even when she went along with his claims. He wondered if there was any point in even trying to lie. 

“Please refrain from embellishing the amount. It is very clear that you are deprived of rest,” Jheselbraum said.

Maybe she could read his thoughts.

“I can’t sleep for more than an hour,” Ford muttered, pressing his face into his knees. His eyes were still stinging. “If I do, this shit happens.”

“An hour is not very long. Humans like yourself need a considerably greater amount of sleep than that,” Jheselbraum said.

“Yes, I know. But there’s no time for ‘taking a moment to breathe’ when you’re running from bounty hunters,” Ford snapped, pressing his skull to his knees harder. “So I don’t let it happen.”

“What is it that happens when you sleep for longer than an hour?”

“Nightmares.” 

“What makes them so consistent, Stanford?”

She was pushing him, needling a bit too far into dangerous territory. Ford shivered. “Stress.”

She leaned forward. “Is that the truth?”

Ford didn’t like this. “Yes.”

“Is that the truth, Stanford?” she asked again. Ford wanted to flee. He could feel the warmth of her body, but it wasn’t nearly as soothing as it usually felt. 

“Yes, of course it—” 

“Stanford.” Her voice was cold. “Is that the truth?”

A chill ran down Ford’s spine, and he wanted nothing more in that moment than to melt into the floor. Her stare was suffocating, like a physical weight squeezing him from every direction. It was too much.

He shook his head. 

Jheselbraum was quiet for a few long, agonizing moments. Then, she asked, “It is Bill that gives you these nightmares, correct?”

Ford stiffened, his head shooting up to stare at her. “You… You… You know…?” he squeaked.

“Of course I know, Stanford. Bill is omnipresent.” Ford’s eyes went wide and he stopped breathing, so she quickly clarified, “Metaphorically speaking. He is known throughout most dimensions, especially to transcendent beings like myself. He himself is trapped within the Nightmare Realm.”

Ford supposed he should’ve expected this. “If you knew this whole time, then why did you let me stay here…?”

Jheselbraum smirked bitterly. “Bill Cipher is childish and violent, but he is not stupid. He would not try to reach me. You are quite safe here.”

Ford shook his head a little. “But… he found me… He said that he can… tamper with me again…”

Jheselbraum gave him a look that bordered a little too closely on pity. “Stanford… If there is one thing you must know about Bill Cipher, it is that he always lies.”

A pang struck Ford. Of course, he was bluffing. The reason he had not been having nightmares was not because of his self deprivation of rest; that had never been reliable in the past. It was because he was in the shrine. As for why he finally had one now… It must have been because of the time spent on the outside. That would explain why Jheselbraum had not offered him the chance for a long while. 

But then again, if she knew, then... why would she offer at all?

She noticed his questioning look, or perhaps read his mind (he still wasn’t certain if that was something she could do, and was afraid to ask), and said, “Sometimes, it takes a drastic event for people to realize something must be done.” 

“You… planned for this?” Ford asked, his voice very small. 

She nodded, apologetic sympathy plain on her face. “I’m very sorry that I had to put you through this. I wish it was not necessary. I very much hoped that you would come to me yourself, but you clearly had no intention of doing so. If I allowed you to continue this self destructive pattern, you may have done some very serious harm to yourself.” She bowed her head slightly. “I do hope you will forgive me.”

A lot of things were bouncing around Ford’s head now. That was a lot to absorb at once. He tried to piece together where that left him. “But… what is it you plan to do now…?”

She scooted forward very slightly. “Stanford, there is a way for me to remove Bill’s influence from your mind.”

Ford stiffened. “What?!” 

“It is rather—” She was cut off when Ford grabbed her by the collar of her robe with both hands. Jheselbraum’s eyes went wide with surprise. 

“You knew what was happening to me this whole time, and you knew how to fix it, but you said NOTHING?!” he yelled. 

Jheselbraum gently grasped his wrists and prised his hands away from her. “Stanford, please refrain from attacking me. I understand that you are upset—” 

“UPSET?! I’m not UPSET, I’m LIVID! Do you have any idea how LONG I’ve been dealing with this?!” His face was bright red, contorted in a furious glower. Jheselbraum was unfazed. 

“Stanford. Control yourself,” she said firmly, “This anger will not lead anywhere productive.”

“Why didn’t you do anything?!” he demanded.

“It is because you were in no shape for my solution. It will take a considerable toll on you, Stanford. There is a reason I was so insistent on getting your strength up,” Jheselbraum says. 

“What is it then?!”

“Invasive cranial surgery.”

That shocked Ford enough for him to sink back down on his haunches, the anger evaporating from his face. Jheselbraum shifted the defensive grip on his wrists to a comforting, gentle hold on his hands (with particular gentleness shown to the one he had injured).

“I would have to install a metal plate into your skull. In order to prevent it from becoming too heavy, I would also have to remove a portion of the bone underneath it. The metal would then act as a barrier that keeps Bill from accessing your mindscape,” Jheselbraum explained, her voice back to that soft gentleness, exuding warmth and comfort. She stroked her thumbs over the backs of his hands soothingly. “It’s a drastic maneuver, one that I could not propose until I knew you were physically capable of dealing with it. And I would understand if you do not feel comfortable with undergoing—” 

“Do it.”

Jheselbraum paused. Ford wore a completely unwavering expression of determination, but she could plainly see the notes of fear creeping in from the edges. “Perhaps you should take a little while to contemplate the risks.”

Ford shook his head hard. “Please. Jheselbraum, please, do it. As soon as you possibly can. Please.” Desperation was beginning to creep into his tone. 

Jheselbraum sighed softly, another subtle wave of pity coming over her features. “Alright. Of course.” She squeezed his hand gently, letting go of the injured one to lightly stroke his upper arm. “Of course. We will begin preparations for the procedure in the morning.” She slowly rose to her feet, helping him up as well. Then, she directed him into the bed, tidying the mussed sheets and tucking him in. He made no move to stop any of it. “I understand if you do not wish to sleep, but you must at least allow your body to rest.” She gently brushed his hair from his forehead, fluffed his pillow, and walked silently out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy late birthday Wit my pal! Thank you for giving me an excuse (and the motivation) to crank out something this self indulgent. Medical hurt/comfort is literally all I wrote when I first started writing fanfic, so this could not have been a more delightful request to get. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for reading! Tune in next time for even more aggressive Space Mothering!
> 
> EDIT: CHECK OUT THE AMAZING ART DRAWN FOR THIS FIC!!!!!  
> [x](http://embulalia.tumblr.com/post/151813227246/pinesinthewoods-inktober-12-from-embulalias)


	2. Chapter 2

Ford had not undergone a surgical procedure in a very, very long time. Not since his childhood, and even then, it was only a small surgery meant to repair a broken arm. He remembered being afraid. He remembered lying in an uncomfortable hospital bed, wearing a humiliating, scratchy gown. He remembered gentle hugs, soothing voices, a hand gently squeezing his, a voice saying, "Don't worry Sixer, I'll be right here when you wake up!"

This one would be much different than that one. 

Ford couldn't sleep the rest of the night, and he had no desire to either. The anxiety building in his chest was bad enough without Bill's help. What had he agreed to? Replacing a portion of his skull with metal? It sounded like an absolutely insane prospect. The more he thought about it, the more his stomach twisted, the more his head pounded in psychosomatic protest. 

How could he possibly survive with a grave surgical wound in his head? Wouldn't it cause significant weakening of his skull overall? Unless Jheselbraum intended to house him for the rest of his life, this procedure would surely make it impossible to do most of the things his life depended on as a drifter. 

He was going to be sick. 

"It's to get rid of Bill," he whispered to himself, "It's to get rid of Bill." He mumbled it over and over, like a mantra. As if that would somehow make what was going to happen fine. 

But it did make it fine. Or at least, it made it worthwhile. 

Worthwhile was as close to fine as Ford could hope to get.

He tried not to toss and turn too much, remembering her suggestion that he rest his body. The anticipatory anxiety that coursed through his veins made it incredibly difficult; he constantly felt as if he couldn’t get comfortable. He desperately wanted to get out of bed and burn off some of the nervous energy, but he fought himself into submission. 

He had lived through many long nights in his life. That night probably would have made the top ten, were he to list them.

Of course, part of the problem may have been how difficult it was to keep track of time in the shrine. His little room had no windows, and if Dimension 52 used clocks, he had not seen any. He had been meaning to ask her for one but never got around to it. 

He passed the time with the breathing exercises he learned in his younger years. They were another luxury that his time on the lamb kept him from enjoying, but with some trial and error, he was able to recall his favoured techniques. They helped his nerves a little, but there was only so much he could expect them to do. 

After he tired of the breathing, he took to tapping his fingers against the mattress rhythmically. He counted the extremely faint sounds his fingertips made against the soft cloth. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, thumb to outermost pinky. Then, he reversed it; 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, pinky to thumb. Thumb to pinky, pinky to thumb. 

It was something their mother had taught them when they were kids. “Counting is easy,” she explained while twisting a lock of her hair around her pointed finger, “It won’t tire you out. You tap your fingers along with the counting to make it easier to focus. Say the numbers in your head and think about the motions. If you’re in a tight pinch, it can help you calm down.” When Ford made a vaguely bitter remark about his fingers (a remark he no longer remembers), she smiled sympathetically, touched his cheek, and told him, “Extra fingers will make it extra calming.”

He doubted it worked that way. But some part of him believed it, and he was in no rush to disprove himself.

Normally, he would not have heard the door as it was eased open; Jheselbraum was remarkably good at keeping her footsteps light and the hinges silent. The fact that he could pick up on the minute swishing of the fabric of her robe was a testament to how on edge he was. He tensed immediately, grabbing fistfuls of the sheets under him. Jheselbraum sighed. 

“I hoped you would sleep at least a little bit,” she said, her voice soft and quiet. She approached his bedside, standing over his head. Ford’s heart began to race, and some part of him wondered if she was going to slice into his skull at that very moment.

He forced out a laugh. “C-can’t imagine why you’d think that,” he said, cringing at the anxious waver in his own voice. 

“I did not say that I believed you would,” she replied, “Merely that I hoped you would.”

He grumbled something inaudible under his breath. She didn’t ask him to repeat it. 

“So are you… doing it right here, or…?” Ford asked slowly.

“Oh, no, of course not!” Jheselbraum gasped, looking taken aback. “That would be incredibly unsanitary! Not to mention, it would stain these sheets terribly.”

Ford let out the smallest breath of relief. Well, that was at least one concern alleviated. “What are you going to do then…?”

“There are some measures of preparation to carry out before we begin,” Jheselbraum explained, “After those have been completed, I will take you to a sanitary room used exclusively for serious medical care. You have been there before, but you do not remember it.”

Ford nodded quietly, sitting up. “Alright… Let’s go then…”

Jheselbraum offered a large hand to him. He hesitated, then took it, allowing her to pull him gently to his feet. She dusted the wrinkles from his clothing. “Regrettably, you will not be able to eat anything until we are finished.”

“I am possibly the least hungry I have ever been in my life,” Ford replied. It was true. All space in his stomach was occupied by dread. 

Jheselbraum chuckled softly and led him out of the room. 

She brought him to a bathroom, lit by pretty fixtures inlaid in the smooth walls. The stone walls were pale shades of blue and grey, and the floor was warm underfoot. A large, white tub was in the centre of the room, a silver shower high overhead—to accommodate the tall alien it belonged to, assumedly. Even if it was logical, it still looked rather odd to Ford. 

“This one is a lot nicer than the one by my room,” Ford commented.

“That is one of my guest facilities,” she replied, bringing a pale grey chair towards the centre of the room. “Some of the creatures I house in my temple have no use for it. Its size and grandeur was of lower priority. Surely you can understand.”

Ford nodded, watching her move about the room. She was gathering supplies from a few of the different cupboards lining the walls. There was only one mirror in the whole room: the one over the marbled stone counter. “What are you doing?” he asked eventually.

“For this procedure to be safe, you must be clean,” she explained, setting down her armful of items. “I would suggest removing your outer layers for now. This room is plenty warm enough for you to be comfortable without them.”

He had a sneaking suspicion that he would not be comfortable without them, no matter how warm the room might be. Regardless, he forced himself to shed his long coat, his boots, his scarf. He held the bundle of cloth in his arms, looking for somewhere to set them. Jheselbraum approached and took them from him. 

“I will wash these for you after the procedure is completed,” she said, “Please allow me a moment to set them aside. Take a seat.” She left the room.

With only his socks on, Ford found himself sliding around on the floor when he began to walk. Out of curiosity, he attempted an intentional slide, propelling himself as if he were on ice skates. It had been a very long time since he last went skating. He remembered falling a lot, in a frankly impressive variety of ways. He remembered laughing about it, another voice laughing alongside his. Dusting ice from his coat and giving him a playful shove to get him gliding again. 

Ford stopped sliding around.

He jumped when the bathroom door opened just a moment later. Jheselbraum looked apologetic. “I did not wish to startle you,” she said gently. He waved it off, puffing out his cheeks slightly.

“It’s nothing. Just a bit on edge.” 

She nodded. “That is understandable. You are facing a difficult ordeal. It is reasonable to be anxious.” She patted the chair. “Please, sit.”

Ford sat. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“The first thing we must do is shave your hair,” she said, and Ford jumped out of his chair when the loud buzz of a pair of clippers erupted behind him.

His heart was racing again, his breath coming short and fast and heavy. Blades, whirring blades near his neck. Jheselbraum gave him a look of concern. He swallowed hard. “I… I…” he stammered.

Jheselbraum sighed. “Yes, I understand that it is anxiety-inducing for you. If there were a way for me to set this part of the procedure aside for you, I would. Unfortunately, there is simply no working around it.” She turned the clippers off, the loud chattering going dead. “Do you need a moment, Stanford?”

Ford swallowed again. This was silly. There was no reason to be afraid of a pair of hair trimmers. Especially when it was Jheselbraum holding them. And yet…

“Stanford?” she prompted again, her voice even gentler than before. “Is there anything you might like to soothe you? A warm beverage, perhaps?”

Ford shuddered once, urging himself to regain his composure. It was ridiculous to be afraid of something so trivial, especially with something deserving of proper fear on the horizon. He straightened his back, sucked in a deep breath, and sat himself back down. “I’m alright. Get on with it.”

The noise they made was unsettling, and it made him cringe. He jumped forward when he felt the cold metal against his neck.

“Stanford—” Jheselbraum started to say, but he interrupted her.

“I AM NOT AFRAID OF THIS!” he shouted. Jheselbraum was quiet for a moment, then rested a hand on his shoulder. He tensed, but she did not move it this time. 

“It is alright, Stanford,” she said softly, gently rubbing his shoulder. His muscles were taught under her soft massaging, coiled with stress. “You are afraid because you have lived a life fraught with danger. It is alright.” She shifted around so she was in front of him. He avoided looking at her, fixing his gaze at his own knees instead. “Perhaps you would find it less disconcerting if we did not start in such a vulnerable area.”

Ford grit his teeth. Then, he nodded. 

She pressed the clippers to his cheek, starting on his sideburns. He was uncomfortable, but his mind had come to terms with the lack of an immediate threat on his life. When she moved them up the side of his head, he found himself gradually becoming used to the feeling of their chattering against his scalp. 

Hair was something he hadn’t been able to care about for a while. There was always something far more important to hold his attention. However, he would be lying if he were to say his anxiety was purely due to the awful feeling of having blades near his neck. The concern was miniscule, near non-existent, but some tiny part of him rebelled against how strange and awful he would look when this was through.

“There is no shame in being distressed because of this,” Jheselbraum said. Ford gritted his teeth. “It does not make you vain. It is an inherently human trait.”

“Can you read my mind or can’t you?” Ford snapped. Jheselbraum chuckled.

“I cannot share all of my secrets with you,” she said pleasantly, “It would spoil the sense of mystery.”

Ford snorted.

A small pile of loosely curling hairs was beginning to accumulate in Ford’s lap. He watched locks fall past his face and join them quietly. Quite suddenly, he noticed that they weren’t the dark brown he was used to them being. A considerable amount of faded, grey tones had somehow snuck in. 

It had, admittedly, been a long while since he had last gotten a proper look at himself. It was yet another thing that had fallen by the wayside; any haphazard haircuts he gave himself were done by feel, and his shaving methods did not require a mirror. But he had always assumed that he looked about the same as he had before. More tired, perhaps, but otherwise the same. 

He picked up a primarily greyed strand, twisting it between his fingers. It was definitely real, not something his anxious mind had contrived. He blinked hard. Then, he laughed once.

“What is it, Stanford?” Jheselbraum asked as she ran the clippers over his hairline. He sneezed when the fallen strands tickled his nose. “My apologies.”

“It’s nothing,” he muttered, dropping the piece in his fingers. It was not nothing, of course. But he doubted he would be able to put words to his feelings, even if he wanted to. 

Jheselbraum ran her hand over his bare scalp. The feeling of her hand directly against the skin of his head made him shiver; it was bizarre and unfamiliar. The loud buzzing finally silenced. 

“We are finished,” Jheselbraum said, brushing off his shoulders. He felt itchy and uncomfortable from little hairs that had made their way into his shirt. When he stood up, the pile of his hair that had built up in his lap fell all at once; with them altogether, it was considerably harder to ignore how the fact that his dark brown had become salt and pepper. He grit his teeth. “You will have to undress now. I will allow you to bathe independently,” Jheselbraum said, pressing a few bottles into his hands. “And Stanford, you do not look repulsive.”

Ford pretended not to hear her assurance. He wanted no acknowledgement made to his own vanity. Instead of responding, he carried the bottles to the tub and plopped them down. 

“Must you watch?” he muttered as he fingered the hem of his shirt.

“I have seen you nude many times before, Stanford. There is no cause for embarrassment.”

“I do not find that comforting.”

Jheselbraum rolled her many eyes. “If it will make you feel more at ease, then I will not watch.” With that, she turned her back to him. 

Ford hesitated for a moment before stripping off his itchy clothing. He tossed them onto the stone floor and quickly clambered into the tub, pulling the curtains closed around it. 

The spray of the water pelted hard against his newly bare scalp. It felt incredibly strange, and he found it at least a little unsettling. But the warmth was soothing on his tense muscles, and he desperately wanted to scrub all of the itchy, clinging hairs from his skin. 

“The soaps I gave you are antibacterial,” Jheselbraum said from across the room. He could hear her rummaging through cabinets. “They do not smell particularly pleasant, and they might tingle.”

Ford popped open the first bottle and winced. She was definitely correct; it reeked of strong chemicals. It was an offensive shade of bright green and resembled some varieties of alien bile he had seen in Dimension 48/2’. He grimaced, then steeled himself and got to work on scrubbing himself clean.

“Stanford,” Jheselbraum said rather suddenly. Ford jumped; he hadn’t expected to be making conversation while he bathed. “Do you recall your own age?”

Ford grit his teeth and dragged his nails a bit more gruffly over his skin. She was going directly to the most uncomfortable subject. “No.”

“I suspected that was the cause of your discomfort,” she mused. He heard some fiddling about, and then what sounded like a vacuum began to whir. He frowned.

“Is that…?”

“A Dustbuster, as the label declares,” she said.

“How do you have a Dustbuster? There’s no electricity here.”

She chuckled. “Stanford, sometimes I find the prioritization of your questions rather perplexing.” He huffed. “Surely you have noticed that things in this shrine do not always function in ways you might expect. This is far from my only appliance.”

“How would I have noticed that? I’m in that one room most of the time.”

“The fire,” she prompted gently, “And the lights.”

He supposed she did have a point.

“The shrine is something of a… a liminal space, you could say,” she explained, the vacuum whirring noisily. “There is a constant stream of people and items coming and going. I am the only thing that has made a permanent home here.” She chuckled again. “I have met many different beings in my time as oracle. Most have become quite dear to me, and for that I thank the Axolotl. It is most unfortunate that they all must leave before too long.”

Ford rinsed the green lather from his body. “That sounds rather… lonely,” he commented softly.

Jheselbraum paused. “Perhaps,” she said after a moment, regathering herself, “But it is certainly interesting. It has been said that sooner or later, everything turns up turns up at the door of this shrine.”

The second bottle’s liquid smelled just as off putting. This one was a vivid blue, not unlike the colour of airplane toilet water. “That can’t be possible,” he said, “Most things don’t have the ability to travel through dimensions.”

“Infinite universes, Stanford,” Jheselbraum reminded him, “Everything does somewhere.” She then added with a dismissive tone, “But it is only a legend that is passed along with the title of oracle. Who can say for certain?”

“You sure seemed certain of it a moment ago.” The blue soap was making his skin extremely tingly, almost to the point of discomfort. He found himself yearning for the green.

“I have my beliefs. But I am aware of the limitations of my own knowledge; unless I hear it from the Axolotl itself, I cannot claim certainty.”

Ford wondered how thorough he really had to be with this second soap. He wanted it off of himself as soon as possible. “You keep bringing up this… Axolotl.”

“That is a discussion for another time. You may rinse yourself off now, by the way. I know the blue one is quite uncomfortable.”

Ford hopped under the spray instantly, rubbing it from himself with fervour. He made a mental note to ask her how she knew she that. 

When he shut off the water, a large, grey towel was offered through the curtain. It was clearly made for a being Jheselbraum’s size, and it covered his body from chest to well below the knees. While it was excessive, it was undeniably soft and comfortable. 

Jheselbraum placed a hand on Ford’s shoulder. He didn’t flinch away from it. “The time is drawing near,” she said, and he nodded his understanding. 

“Will I get to wear any clothing?” he asked awkwardly. He didn’t look forward to braving the drafts of the hallway in only a towel.

“Yes, certainly,” she said, and then a powder blue robe was being pressed into his hands. She respectfully closed her eyes to allow him to change. To his surprise, it seemed to fit him quite reasonably.

“It’s not too big,” he said, stunned. She laughed.

“Of course it’s not. A robe too long could become a serious medical hazard during the recovery process.” Somehow, that seemed to dampen the excitement of the revelation. 

It was a short walk from the bathroom to their destination: a rather small and plain room with a few cupboards scattered about and a tall cot in the middle. Jheselbraum sat him down in one of the chairs near the cot. 

“Is this…?” Ford asked, trailing off.

“My operating room, yes,” Jheselbraum replied, busying herself by looking through the cupboards and bringing out a number of supplies. Bottles of pressurized air and dark brown fluid, some instruments wrapped in plastic, a sheet of curved metal. Ford looked away.

“So what’re you going to do?” he muttered.

“Well, I will start by sedating you,” Jheselbraum said. He could hear the clanking of metal and plastic against the counter and each other. “Then I will make an incision across the back of your head, from two inches behind the left ear to two inches behind the right.” She paused, having noticed how white Ford’s knuckles had become. “Perhaps a fully detailed explanation is unnecessary.”

Ford didn’t respond. This had become much more real than it was a short while ago. 

Jheselbraum gently touched his shoulder, earning a startled noise. She sighed softly. “You are quite nervous.” Ford snorted. A small smile tugged at the corners of Jheselbraum’s mouth. “What is funny?” 

“Never mind. Let’s… get this over with,” Ford said, getting to his feet. “So do I get in that bed then?”

Jheselbraum nodded. “I shall put you under when you are ready,” she said.

Ford inhaled deeply, let it out in a single harsh puff, and gingerly climbed onto the cot. He laid back slowly, squirming about in a futile attempt at getting comfortable. He kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling, pretending not to notice the sounds of Jheselbraum preparing her instruments. 

A shadow fell over him, and then she was holding a mask close to his face. “Are you ready?” she asked. 

Ford’s heart had already begun to race again, his gaze fixed on the mask. He swallowed hard. “Yes,” he lied through clenched teeth.

She held the mask firmly over his mouth and nose. He was assaulted by the strong scent of… bubblegum? “Count backwards from fifty for me, Stanford,” she said, her voice gentle, warm, and soothing. 

“Fifty, forty nine, forty eight…” he mumbled. He remembered this. He had been asked to do it before, for the surgery to repair his arm. They weren’t supposed to let anyone back with him into the operating room. His mother had quickly waved that notion out the window, insisting that they let her accompany him back. He remembered her hand squeezing his as she smiled down at him. 

He didn’t remember the feeling of awful heaviness that spread through his body.

His immediate instinct was to panic. He tried desperately to wrench the mask away from his face, but his arms were too heavy and sluggish, and by the time he managed to lift them at all, his distress had been noticed. Jheselbraum pinned him to the cot, and the restriction of his movement only made him panic harder. He tried desperately to thrash, to twist his head and free himself from the gas filling his lungs and flooding his body with heaviness. A pitiful whine worked its way out from his chest, a keening plea as he stared up at Jheselbraum with increasingly glassy, droopy eyes. 

Her voice was wavering and distant, as if he were listening to it from underwater, but he could barely make out her murmur: “You will be okay soon. Just allow your body to rest.”

And then he was dragged too far beneath the surface to hear anymore.

 

 

Searing white light. It dug into his eyes like a brand. He had no more than an instant to react to that before the next searing pain bowled over him, this one from somewhere inside his skull. A high-pitched groan ripped its way from his throat without his consent, and he curled onto his side, his hands reaching for his head.

Something stopped them before they could get there. A rock solid, impossibly hard grasp on his wrists, as warm as it was powerful.

“Stanford,” a voice said, and he could barely hear it through the awful ringing deep in his ears. He grit his teeth, his breath coming in pants. His skin was slick with sweat, and his body quivered. “Stanford, can you hear me?”

Ford managed a clipped, strained grunt in acknowledgement, forcing it through the tight wheezes.

“Stanford, the procedure was successful. There were no complications. It is in place.”

His thoughts were not assembled well enough for him to make much of the comment. The pain was the only thing on his mind, as if his brain were marinating in it. Maybe she said his name again, maybe she didn’t. He vaguely noticed her hand gently squeezing his shoulder. 

A sharp pinch hit his upper arm, and he flinched, but that only sent another wave of agony rolling over him. This time, when the heavy darkness began to drag him down, he didn’t fight it. 

 

 

He jerked awake quite suddenly, to a feeling of intense agony. An incoherent, involuntary shriek erupted from his throat. It was like someone had plunged a knife into the back of his head, as if someone had poured acid into his skull, as if his head were on fire. He had never felt so much pain at once before.

His hands came up to his head on reflex, but powerful grips on his wrists held them still. He could hear a voice. “Stanford, please, hold still!”

He resisted the grip out of instinct. Something was attacking him, he was sure of it; he had to fend whatever it was off of him before it could cause any serious damage. Another guttural yell escaped his mouth as he struggled futilely against her hold. 

“You aggravated the incision while rolling over!” Jheselbraum tries to explain, pinning down the thrashing man in an attempt to hold him still. “Struggling like this is not helpful!” 

The flailing kicks and punches were only glancing off Jheselbraum’s solid form, each strike painful for him. She bit her lip, murmured a soft apology, and pinned Ford down bodily. Ford’s skull was being ground into the pillows under him. His breath caught in his throat at the sudden explosion of agony. Jheselbraum braced herself, expecting another shriek. What came out of Ford’s mouth instead was a shuddering, high pitched, pathetic plea.

“S-Stanley!” 

Jheselbraum blinked. 

Once the first one was out of his mouth, they came in a torrent; Ford sobbed and screamed the name over and over, begging for help. He thrashed with renewed intensity, but only for a moment. His energy seemed to deplete almost immediately, and then he was shivering and still, wilted, his cries reduced to quiet, wavering moans. 

He didn’t flinch from the sharp sting in his upper arm this time. 

 

 

He opened his eyes in darkness. Not complete darkness; an extremely faint glow was cast across the room from the side. But it was enough to send his heart into a fast flutter. 

His head hurt. A lot. More than anything else had hurt in a long while. It was like someone had cracked his skull open like an egg. 

The sickening part was that it wasn’t particularly far off from the truth.

A wave of nausea washed through his body, and he shuddered. Shaking fingers were raised to his head, tenderly brushing against the thick layer of bandage wrapped around it like a sweatband, or maybe a beanie. He quickly pulled them away.

The gentle light bounced around the wall and ceiling. He watched it intently, hoping to give himself something to focus on beyond the pain in his head and the twisting in his stomach. 

He could hear the strange, magical fire popping quietly. It was rather soothing. The shapes its light cast on the room around him shifted quickly, but not too quickly. He let his eyes droop, his vision lose focus, his mind drift…

A brighter glow of light came from the other side of the room. A large shadow in the centre told him Jheselbraum had opened the door. He didn’t move. She stood in the doorway for a few moments, then she left, closing it behind her and sinking the room back into darkness.

And Ford fell asleep.

 

 

There was movement by his head. 

When he opened his eyes, it wasn’t searingly bright, but it wasn’t dark either; he squinted to allow his eyes time to adjust. He was sitting up, kept supported by what felt like a stack of pillows. A firm hand held his chin, keeping his head still. He instinctively yanked away from the hold, but that had been anticipated, and he was kept from moving.

“Stanford,” Jheselbraum said quickly, not allowing him to slip into panic. “Stanford, I am replacing the bandages around your incision. Please keep still. You are in no danger.”

He blinked heavily, clearing the remaining fog from his vision. Seven eyes stared into his face intently, and an automatic shiver ran down his spine. Jheselbraum blinked and softened her expression. 

“How long have I been out…?” Ford asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.

“It has been three days since the procedure. You awoke briefly upon its completion so I could check on your state. You have been asleep since then,” she explained. “May I continue?”

Ford was about to nod, but he stopped himself. “Yes, that’s fine,” he muttered. Jheselbraum continued unwinding the bandage. 

It stung when she reached the bare flesh beneath it. He didn’t want to think about how gruesome the wound must be; based on how much it hurt, it couldn’t be pretty. 

“You awoke at a rather unfortunate moment,” Jheselbraum admitted, “This will not be particularly comfortable.” She held a rag to the mouth of a bottle full of purple fluid. Once it was thoroughly dampened, she brought it to the back of his head. 

It stung like acid when it made contact with the wound. Ford hissed, digging his fingers hard into his thighs and gritting his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache. He could feel a heat teasing at the corner of his eyes, so he grit his teeth harder.

“‘M gonna bet that this would’ve woken me up anyway,” he grunted.

“Perhaps,” Jheselbraum said, her voice soft and warm as she carefully cleaned his sliced skin. “Do not grind your teeth like that. I have no desire to perform dental surgery on you in addition to this procedure.”

Ford snorted. He didn’t have it in him to react in any more substantial way than that.

Eventually, she pulled the cloth away. He could see through his slightly misty vision that it was tinged red. 

“So… this is it…?” Ford murmured, watching her set the cloth down on the bedside table and pick up a package of cotton dressings. The wrapping looked vaguely familiar to a brand he had known at home, but a few key details were wrong. “He’s gone…?”

Jheselbraum tensed momentarily. “Now is not the time to discuss him. The wounds are too fresh. Literally,” she said, her tone clipped but without aggression. “But yes. He cannot reach you any longer.”

He had understood the point of the procedure going in. He had understood it when he awoke in blinding pain. He had even understood it when he drifted off to sleep willingly. But it hadn’t quite sunk in yet. Hearing her confirm it, that his mind would be free of Bill forever… that he could think…

That he could SLEEP…

He laughed. The sound was terse, slightly hysterical, buoyed up in pitch by sheer disbelief. “He’s gone.”

Jheselbraum nodded, smiling a little. “Yes, Stanford. Gone.”

The heat stinging in the corners of his eyes grew too much to handle. He laughed again, tears welling up in his eyes. He batted at them roughly, pulling his fingers away from the harsh gouges he had pressed into his thighs. “J-Jheselbraum…” he wheezed, hiccuping, “Thank you…”

She squeezed his shoulder. “You’re quite welcome, Stanford,” she said, her voice bright and kind. There was a moment’s pause while she carefully wound a bandage around his head, holding the dressings in place, wherein Ford struggled to control his breath, swiped at his eyes once again, did everything in his power to not let himself sniffle. Then, she asked, “If it wouldn’t make you too uncomfortable, would you allow me to give you a hug?”

Ford nodded as lightly as he could manage, and she enveloped him in a warm, solid, soothing embrace. It was like leaning against a sun-baked boulder. He had done that a few times, in various deserts across a few different dimensions. But he had not been safe before. He had been just as on edge as any other time, and he was not able to enjoy the feeling.

He was safe here.

And so, with the comfortable warmth easing his muscles, with the solidity keeping him supported, and with Jheselbraum’s slow massaging of his back and shoulders soothing him, he once again allowed himself to drift into sleep. 

 

 

Six days had passed. Whatever that awful purple fluid was, it was doing wonders for Ford’s incision; the constant discomfort had decreased significantly, and when Jheselbraum carefully peeled back the bandage, she nodded thoughtfully and said, “I think we may be able to keep this off now.”

It felt rather odd for the cool air to be directly against his head after it had been covered by the thick layerings of bandage for so long. He shivered, hesitantly bringing his hand up to his scalp. His cropped hair was velvety under his fingers. Jheselbraum delicately took his wrist before he could reach the wound. 

“It’s not quite healed enough to handle prodding,” she said. He lowered his hand. 

She busied herself with her collection of medical supplies while Ford fiddled with the bedsheets between his hands. Six days. By all accounts, that was an incredibly short amount of time to see such significant healing. It was a major neurological procedure, was it not? It should not heal this quickly.

“The state of medicine in your dimension is quite poor,” Jheselbraum remarks, making Ford jump. “It has improved since you were last there, but it still leaves much to be desired. I have gathered supplies from a variety of dimensions, many of which are significantly more advanced than your own.”

“Jheselbraum,” Ford asked, “Can you read my mind?”

Jheselbraum chuckled. “I thought I told you before, Stanford: I cannot share all of my secrets with you.”

“I just… was wondering, because... I suppose I assumed that you wouldn’t be able to after the plate was in,” Ford muttered. He twisted the sheets between his hands. 

Jheselbraum paused and turned towards him. “You are afraid that the plate will not sufficiently do its job.”

“If you can still see what I’m thinking, then how can I be sure Bill can’t?”

Jheselbraum sighed softly, then smiled. “Alright, if it will ease your concerns. I cannot.”

Ford frowned. “Then how do you always—” 

“Know what you’re thinking?” Jheselbraum finished. Ford bristled. 

“That one was obvious…” he grumbled. She laughed again and moved closer to his bedside, touching his shoulder. 

“I cannot see into your mind. My ability to anticipate your thoughts is due to my clairvoyance. I can see where our conversation will go,” she explained. 

“Then why can’t you see my future?” Ford countered.

“That is a far grander prospect, Stanford. Although infinite derivations of circumstance exist, you are basically the same person through them. Your mind may be informed by different occurrences, but you are still Stanford Pines,” she said with a smile. “Besides, you always ask the same things.”

Ford didn’t know how to react to that revelation. “Am I really that predictable?”

“Yes, of course you are.” With that, Jheselbraum patted his arm and returned to tidying up the room.

She hummed quietly to herself while she worked. Ford listened, trying to identify the tune; it felt vaguely familiar, but in a faintly surreal sense; it was more akin to deja vu then proper recollection. He considered asking about it, but held his tongue; if every other version of him had, he would throw her off and say nothing. He would not be the predictable one.

Jheselbraum chuckled softly and said, “This is where you refrain from asking about things you wish to know for the sake of being dissimilar to other versions of yourself.” Ford bristled again, huffing.

“So have many versions of me been here before?” he asked bitterly.

“A fair few,” she replied, a touch of wistfulness sneaking into her voice. She put the last of the clutter away and rested both her hands on the counter. “This was… not my first time attempting this procedure.”

Something about how she said it caught Ford’s attention. He was struck with an image of himself, coated in blood, skin ashen, Jheselbraum standing over his splayed form with a grim look. He shivered. 

“Have any… gone wrong…?” he asked hesitantly. 

She let out a long, slow sigh. “There was one that did not go exactly how I had planned. There was a lot more… blood loss than I anticipated. But you did not pass; it was simply a longer and more difficult recovery process.” She turned and smiled at him. “I did not repeat that error.”

He nodded a little. No deaths, that was comforting. 

“So it… always works,” he asked. 

“Yes. It always works.”

Ford gripped the bedsheets tightly. “And they never… hear from…”

Jheselbraum’s expression turns grim. “Correct. Never again.” She paused for a moment, then rested her hand on his shoulder. “You do understand this, right? He’s gone. You will not hear him in your thoughts again. Ever again.”

Ford was still having trouble grasping it. It still felt too good to be true. But on a logical level he did understand, so he nodded. 

“From here on out, you have no excuse to avoid sleep. Do you understand?” she scolded, and Ford laughed. 

“Yes, I get it,” he said, waving her off. She chuckled with him. 

After a few moments of quiet, Jheselbraum said quietly, “Do you remember your other periods of awareness?”

Ford blinked. “Yes, of course I do. I’ve been awake for a couple days.”

“I meant… in the early days,” she prompted gently. Ford supposed she was referring to something specific.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, so I’m going to assume the answer is no,” he said.

Jheselbraum sighed. “In the middle of the night, you agitated your wounds. It was… quite painful, and it roused you.”

Ford nodded quietly. “So… I’m lucky to not remember it then,” he said. “Why are you bringing it up?”

Jheselbraum looked at him, her expression unreadable. She was quiet for a moment. “Do you remember what you did?”

“No, Jheselbraum, I don’t. Is this some sort of test?”

“No, no, Of course not.” She sighed. “You were yelling. Calling for help.”

“I must’ve been panicking,” Ford said, his brows furrowed. He couldn’t figure out where she was going with this.

“Yes, you certainly were. You weren’t calling for help blindly, Stanford, you were calling for someone specific.” 

“So what?”

“Do you remember who that might be?”

“Would you get to your point already?!” Ford snapped, having grown quite impatient with her needling. 

“Stanley.”

Ford felt like he had been punched in the gut.

“You were calling for Stanley.”

He was gritting his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache. He bit out in a tense voice, “I’m not discussing that.”

“Stanford…”

“No.”

She sighed softly. “I’m disappointed in you,” she said. That also felt like a punch to the gut.

“I just… No. I can’t,” he muttered, drawing his shoulders up to his ears and looking away from her. “I can’t…”

His voice must have gotten adequately soft and pathetic at the end, because she squeezed his shoulder and said, “Alright. We don’t have to.” 

She stood. “I will be a few minutes,” she said, and then she left. Ford exhaled shakily, sinking back into the pillows. 

He allowed himself to stew for the five minutes it took her to return. She was carrying his clothing in her arms. He sat up straight again at the sight of it.

“I think it’s about time you left this room,” she said with an encouraging smile. 

“I couldn’t agree more.”

 

 

It had been one week. 

He was still getting the occasional headache, and the ugly mark running from ear to ear around the back of his head was a gruesome sight to behold, but in all… he was feeling quite excellent. He slept for six consecutive hours, the longest he had in decades. He was well fed, he was clean, he was rested, and he was comfortable. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been comfortable, but he was finally comfortable. 

It was a cause for celebration, and celebrate was exactly what they had decided to do.

Ford had become quite accustomed to bizarre intergalactic food, but cocktails made from cosmic sand was a new one for him. It took only one glass of the stuff to have him tipsy, something incredibly amusing to Jheselbraum.

“I didn’t take you for such a lightweight, Stanford,” she said with a chuckle. His entire face was as flushed as his nose.

“I thought you could see the future!” he accused, stirring his straw around the melting ice at the bottom of his glass. “This stuff is powerful anyway, it’d get any human I bet.” He tipped it towards her. “How about a refill?”

“I think not.”

“What?! Why not?” he demanded with a sharp flourish, accidentally chucking the ice across the room. 

“That would be why,” she laughed. He grumbled to himself.

“Say, Jessie,” he said.

“Jessie! That’s not a name I expected to hear from you!” she exclaimed.

“Jheselbraum’s a real mouthful, you know,” Ford said, squinting accusatorily at her. “That’s not the point anyway. I was gonna ask you… Why do you bother to do all this stuff for me?” He paused. “Mes. Plural.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mes. ‘Cause you’ve had more than one of me—”

“Yes, yes, I understood that. I was asking what you meant by ‘this stuff,’” she clarified, cutting him off. 

“Oh, you know, picking me up and taking care of me and the plate and stuff,” he explained. Then, he noisily slurped on the straw, searching for any remaining drops of liquid. 

“I’m a healer. It’s what I do,” she says, watching him with amusement.

He abandons the straw with an irritated huff. “But why me so many times? You said you picked me up intentionally, I didn’t just wander onto your doorstep.”

She took his glass from him and filled it with water. “You are correct,” she said as she handed it back, “I do search for you.”

“Why?” He took a sip of his fresh drink and added, “And don’t just say some bullshit about staying mysterious or something.”

“Destiny, Stanford. You are a very important figure,” she said. 

Ford blinked. “What’s that?”

She simply smiled at him.

“You can’t just leave it at that,” he said irritatedly, “Especially after cutting me off at one drink.”

“You are as drunk as a man who has had at least thrice that,” she retorted. Then she nodded. “I suppose I do agree though. It would be unkind of me to mention that and not elaborate.” She cleared her throat and looked Ford directly in the eye. “I knew from the very first moment I ever laid my eyes on you. You have the face of the man destined to defeat Bill.”

Ford felt a rush of excitement flood his body. He shivered. A wide grin broke out across his face beyond his control. “Really…?” he asked, his voice quiet. 

She smiled as well and nodded. “Without a shadow of a doubt.”

It was like his entire being had been reaffirmed. All the fear, the nagging worry that he would fail, that Bill would get him before he could get Bill—all banished in an instant. A massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was walking on air. 

“Now if that's not worthy of one more round, I don't know what is,” he chirped. Jheselbraum chuckled and poured him another glass. 

 

 

When he woke up, he was warm. The ground was soft beneath him, but not like a mattress. Light beat down on his eyelids; he lifted a hand to shield them as he slowly blinked them open. 

He was staring up at a bright lavender sky, the yellow sun beating down on him. 

He sat up quickly and looked around, his eyes watering from the light. Sand; he was laying on sand. He was in the middle of a desert. 

His time in Dimension 52 was over. 

He exhaled slowly, feeling a pang of disappointment. He hadn't gotten to say a proper goodbye to his caretaker, his saviour. She had done so much for him, and he hadn't gotten to say goodbye. 

He could feel his gun resting on his hip, and his coat pockets were heavy with supplies. She had really made sure he was ready before turning him loose. He rifled through them: weapons, food, water, ammunition. He was more properly stocked than he had been for years.

He reached up to drag a hand over his scalp, but his hand met a warm, knit cap. In spite of himself, he smiled. 

He got to his feet and dusted the sand from his coat. 

It was time to move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it ends. This was a pleasure to write for you, my pal; thank you again for such an enjoyable request. Happy (late) birthday, I really hope you enjoyed it! <3
> 
> And to everyone else: thank you so much for reading!!!


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